Cold Open
by Twinings
Summary: Surely there are more useful ways to spend your last five minutes alive.  [CAT]
1. Chapter 1

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Cold Open 

The third stall from the door in the ladies' room of the Daniel Gluck Museum of History in downtown Gotham was not the usual place for this sort of thing. But the Captain wasn't the usual sort of woman. And she couldn't very well do this back at the Riddler's lair. She didn't want _him_ finding out what she was up to, and she didn't think Quiz and Query were likely to be very sympathetic. Not for the first time, and not for the last, she thought longingly of her hobbit-hole and the companions she had once had therein.

But she couldn't go back there. What had been a violent flash—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing—had been allowed to smolder instead of burning out as it should have, and now no one was going to step forward and be the first to say, "I'm sorry."

So here she was, alone in a public restroom, doing something she had never thought she would ever do.

It wasn't her first mistake, and it wasn't going to be her last.

God, it was annoying the way the people out there just started screaming whenever someone pulled a gun on them. For once, she wasn't interested in the damn robbery.

She ventured out of her stall to lock the door, only to have a panicky mother and daughter bowl her over as they flung the door open and burst inside. She fell flat on her back and just barely managed to keep her hold on the bit of plastic in her hand.

"Hold it! Get back out here, you!"

The Captain groaned. A female henchman with a strident voice and some measure of autonomy and an interest in crowd control. That narrowed down the list of potential masterminds a bit, and didn't give her much hope for the day to work out in her favor.

Also, her head hurt from its collision with the floor.

She sat up, got a look at the hench wench, and felt her heart sink.

She was wearing a bright blue fur coat and carrying a freeze gun.

This was not looking good.

"You, too," said the wench. "Get up and get out here."

"Can't you see I'm busy?" the Captain snapped. It occurred to her that if she had some kind of henchman ID, she wouldn't have to deal with this. Maybe she should start carrying one of Eddie's ties around in her back pocket. Or she could print up business cards with happy little question marks.

(Or tuck a piece of straw behind her ear. She took that thought and forced it down to a place where it wouldn't bother her.)

She let the woman and child precede her out the door, and hung back, giving the unknown wench a pleading look.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I would never ask for special treatment normally, but the thing is, I work for the Scarecrow—" this time she didn't even notice the slip "—and, last time we met, I don't think your boss formed a very good opinion of me."

The wench looked doubtful.

"Freeze ain't had no trouble with the Scarecrow since _I_ been working for him."

The Captain physically shuddered at this brutal mangling of her native language, but she fought down her inner Grammar Nazi.

"It's been a while, but—he's still going to kill me if I give him the chance. Please, miss…"

"Lucy."

"Please, Lucy. I don't want to die until I know I'm—"

"What is going on in there, Miss Snowe?" demanded an icy voice that made the Captain's blood run cold. And that wasn't poetic license at work. She felt a chill when she heard the voice, and shivered convulsively when he came into view.

_Him_. Victor Fries. (The tap dancing head in a jar.) Mr. Freeze. (Mr. White Christmas.) Heart of ice. (Walking snowglobe.)

_Him_.

His face betrayed no hint of emotion as those jarring red eyes fastened on her. Only the tightening of his mechanical grip on his freeze gun told her that he recognized her, and did still want her dead.

She might have panicked under any other circumstances. This time she just said, calmly, "You have a henchman named Lucy Snowe? That is the coolest thing I have ever heard. Did she come with the name, or did you give it to her? You're not a fan, are you? _Jane Eyre? Wuthering Heights_? Isn't there just something so…I don't know, _achingly_ beautiful about those books?"

If he was thrown by her unusual reaction to being menaced by a vengeful Mr. Freeze, it didn't last long.

"_Wuthering Heights_ was by Emily Bronte," he said coldly. "Not Charlotte. Do you have anything else to say before you die?"

"Just two. No, three," she corrected. "One: I really am sorry about the…" She tapped out a quick shuffle-step. "That was _absolutely_ uncalled for, and I swear it'll never happen again. Two: I like a man who knows his literature, and it will be an honor to be murdered by you if that's the way this goes down. And, three: I wouldn't ask for such a favor normally, but it's really important…could you just put off shooting me for about five minutes? I'm…waiting for something."

"And what is it that's so important?"

She held up the object that had been shielded behind her back.

His eyes widened ever so slightly.

"I'd rather not die without knowing," she said in a small voice. "If it's…you know, _not_…I won't fight you or anything."

"And if it _is_?"

She shivered, staring at his finger as it tightened almost imperceptibly on the freeze gun's trigger.

"Then…I'll come to you, alone and unarmed, before the end of October." She felt tears threatening her careful façade of resignation. "Please, Victor. I just want a little more time."

"The universe is not in the habit of doling out extra _time_ to those who aren't ready to say goodbye," he said sternly. Despite her best efforts, the tears began to escape.

"I wouldn't ask for my own sake."

He nodded slightly, turned, and left, taking his hench wench with him.

The Captain exhaled shakily. That was…entirely unexpected.

She walked over to the door and pushed. It didn't move—and it was cold to the touch. He had sealed her in.

Fine. She wasn't interested in trying to escape, anyway. She had made a deal (she shivered) and she was sticking to it. And if that meant she had five minutes to live, so be it. She had plenty of ways to fill that time.

She placed the offending item on the rim of the sink and started to wash her hands. Once, twice, a third time—her hands were turning red and the steam was fogging up her glasses, but it took her attention away from the issue at hand.

What was she going to do? She wasn't going to panic, she _wasn't_, but she wanted to go home. She wanted her first mate. She wanted her Ops. She wanted her Squishy. She wanted them to remind her what an idiot she had been, to tell her how badly she had screwed up, and then to laugh it all off and go back to the way things had been before.

She was too old to believe that by falling asleep in a place she had once called home, she could _will_ the past to be a dream. She had once tried, with childish tenacity and childish logic, to erase four years of her life; erasing the past four weeks wasn't going to be any more successful than that had been.

But she wanted to go _home_. Quiz and Query were never going to be her friends; they would never support her like Techie and Al. And the Riddler—

Eddie—

He was…so wonderful in so many ways, and a part of her, in defiance of all logic and reason, just _might_ be trying to fall in love with him, in spite of her best efforts to the contrary.

She just…couldn't help it. She did love him, she had always loved him, but she wasn't supposed to _love_ him love him.

It wasn't that she couldn't; she had loved, and loved deeply, in the past, but she couldn't sustain those feelings. Her flame of love flared up and burned out so quickly, leaving her horribly indifferent to the love still radiating from the needy, clingy boy who had once been the light of her life…and she _would not_ sacrifice his friendship for half a year of happiness, knowing it would end like that.

She took off her glasses and met her own eyes in the mirror.

"He deserves better than that, and you know it." She sniffed.

"It's not fair."

"It's not _fair_," her mirror-self mocked. "Was it _fair_ when you broke Chris's heart, when all he wanted was to love you? Was it fair to pull away from Robert until he had no choice but to leave you, and never tell him why? Was it fair to play Scarlett O'Hara with the twins, and never commit to either of them? Is it fair to use Gar for thrills and fire without ever letting him get close? _Is it fair to use Eddie_?"

"The twins never loved me."

"Didn't they?"

"God. How did I turn into such a bitch?" she grumbled.

"How did you land yourself in the role of heartbreaker, that's the question." She pushed her hair—bleached blond, in preparation for tomorrow's purple dye job—out of her face, which was about as red as it was ever going to get.

"They used to call me Rudolph every time I cried," she murmured. "Now nobody calls me anything." Her eyebrows drew together.

"So? That's what you wanted! You stopped crying all the time where anyone could see you. You stopped wearing your heart on your sleeve. Now you want to go and change that? Fine. But it will change everything."

"I think I love him."

"You _don't_ love him. You don't love anyone, not really, and that's why you're going to die alone in a public bathroom with no one but your bitchy reflection to mourn your passing."

The Captain turned away, feeling almost as shaken as if the conversation had been with a real person. She really hadn't made a very effective use of her remaining time—but that was all right. She had already written out apologies to her friends for all the things she had done wrong. That would have to be enough. There was only Eddie left to say goodbye to.

She took her little notebook and pen from her back pocket, sat down…and realized that she didn't know what to say.

She was going to have to look at the _thing_ on the sink, that horrid little thing that was going to determine whether or not she got to live to see her thirty-second birthday.

She looked.

She saw.

She felt the tears well up again.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Oh, God, oh, God, I can't—stop it, Captain!" She sat up straighter and wiped her eyes. This was no time to panic; she had to face the truth, and there wasn't much time.

She wrote, in suitably green ink that blurred in and out as the tears sprang to the surface and made their escape, her normally legible cursive becoming a scrawl that even she could barely read.

_I am slim and I am tall_

_And men find me appealing_

_Touch me, kiss me, draw me in_

_I'll give a false good feeling_

_Once I shine in splendor_

_Only once and then no more_

_I'll be your comfort while you wait_

_And I may be to die for_

She tore the paper from the notebook, heedless of the neatness, folded it twice, and labeled it was a question mark just as, with a cracking sound, the door opened.

She stood to face Mr. Freeze.

Oh, God, but she couldn't do this, she wasn't ready; she couldn't find her voice.

Seeing her emotional state and making the logical assumption, he raised the freeze gun.

She glanced at the horrible thing in the sink, took a deep breath, summoned her courage, and said,

"The stick turned blue."

To say that he froze would have been a very bad pun, but accurate nonetheless.

"I'm…" She glanced down at herself, then up at him, unable to complete the statement.

The freeze gun dropped to his side.

"October." There was no expression on his face.

She felt the beginnings of a smile quirking at the corner of her mouth.

"I'll be there with bells on."

Humorless, he turned to go. She looked past him, at the ice sculptures that had once been living patrons of this museum.

"Thank you, Victor."

He stopped, and turned very slowly to face her.

"It isn't for you."

"I know. Still, thank you." She felt the urge to kiss his cheek; only the fact that she knew it was impossible stopped her from trying it. "I'll see you in October."

He turned to go again. Halfway through the door, he looked back at her.

"Congratulations."

And he was gone.

"Yeah," she said to no one, as her hand moved to cover her stomach. "Congratulations."


	2. Chapter 2

_Ten years ago…_

"Victor?"

Her eyes were so beautiful when she looked at him like that. He took her in his arms.

"It doesn't matter, Nora." And it didn't matter, not to him. He could be a father or not; as long as he was her husband, he was happy. Yes, she wanted a baby. Yes, she hoped that this time it would be true. But even if it wasn't, they could always try again. They could and they would. They had the whole rest of their lives.

He could wait.

At the time, he really believed it.

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_Disclaimer: I am not the owner of these characters. I mean, duh._

_This, needless to say, was a CATfic. (www. freewebs. com/ catverse) Takes place about the same time as "Whine and Dine." A couple of weeks after the end of "CATfight."_

_Sorry I'm not posting as frequently as I had hoped._

_See what I did there? This fic had a cold open. Applaud me._


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